Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge is Australia’s first R18+ game

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge has won the dubious honour of attaining Australia’s first R18+ rating for a video game.

The Classification Board awarded the debut R18+ rating for Razor’s Edge’s “strong, bloody violence”. Classification Board director Lesley O’Brien said in a statement that video games which have a “high impact” are not suitable for ages below 18.

“Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge contains violence that is high in impact because of its frequency, high definition graphics, and emphasis on blood effects,” she explained.

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The reating comes as something of a surprise not only for its late announcement – the Wii U exclusive arrived in Europe this week, and was a launch title in the US and Japan – but for its deviation from other platforms, where Ninja Gaiden 3 attracted an MA15+ rating. Internationally, both version of the game secured the same rating – M from the ESRB, 18+ from PEGI.

Razor’s Edge does contain all the DLC released for Ninja Gaiden 3 to date as well as a couple of features not seen in its PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 brethren, some of which increase the intensity of the action. That said, one of the political motivations for the introduction of the R18+ category was to allow for more consistent application of ratings, as some pressure groups believed games too high impact for MA15+ were being let through. There has been some call for games currently rated MA15+ to be reassessed for possible upgrade to R18+.